How to make a DIY Thermoelectric Generator
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 พ.ค. 2016
- In this video we'll be building a thermoelectric generator that can provide enough power to charge your smartphone using just candle flames!
Parts Links:
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Thermoelectric plates*:
US: ebay.to/2DorMPv
UK: ebay.to/2BuuCoZ
DE: ebay.to/2DoNW4l
Voltage regulator:
US: ebay.to/2p8h1xJ
UK: ebay.to/2BecxqX
DE: ebay.to/2CT6SXI
Thermally conductive glue:
US: ebay.to/2Dp97mU
*It's important to not let these budget plates get too hot, or else they can be damaged. Just make sure you refresh the water regularly and you should be okay.
This video and its giveaway is sponsored by Native Union.
To be in with a chance of winning the four Native Union cables (bit.ly/DIY_NU), sign up to their giveaway here: bit.ly/DIY_Native
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let's use thermite for the candles and liquid nitrogen for the cold water.
now we can power a gaming pc
+Jチヌびゅ think about "wattage" first!!!
that was a joke u all know right?
Use dry ice and lava. hehe...
LOL
seriously not being hyperbolic when i say, you're probably the most enjoyable and genuinely usefully informative channels I've ever found on youtube. great vid man.
hyperbolic? LOL
Customer Service Trainer 12yrs.
You kept me interested.
Good voice. Good brief construction delivery.
Well done Lad.
Love how simplified the design was and the lack of tools needed
simple yet effective
Almost forgot for a minute that I was watching TH-cam and not how it's made with some of your edits. Fantastic work man!
Great video. I uploaded a video to my channel a while back showing this. Using ice water will give you very good current output, but the ice will not last long.
Good job picking sponsors I will actually use! Your DIY tutorials are super good looking, and their uses fit my lifestyle perfectly. Hopefully one day I will have the time to make one of them
Your channel is the best DIY channel I've found because it's stuff that's genuinely useful. Colin Furze and Grant Thompson are entertaining, sure, but I can never imagine actually making their stuff the vast majority of the time.
when he started making hot chocolate I lost it
😂
Great video, thought at first it was the Peltier effect but reading about it I see there are 3 effects from the same device, very ingenuous!
I've looked into the idea many many times over the years but this is the first time ive seen a Peltier DIY that is useful. Thx man!
"And you can make hot chocolate while your at it" I laughed so hard
Awesome project
I've just discovered your channel. The quality of video, sound and editing is just incredible. Thank you very much for the effort and sharing your projects with us! You deserve more subs, I hope you the best, and i'm already subscribed ;D Keep it up! Btw: ¿Where are you from?
What the hell are u doing here? Hahahaha
I found this useful for campers to surviving in cold places. Great DIY!
Hello sir, I'm very thrilled after watching this video and I'm glad I found it. The Surprising part is I wanted to do my final year major project on Thermoelectrics and after finding this video, my spirits were boosted. Thank you for this wonderful project. It helped me, to learn more about it.
Fixing hot plate at 50 degrees and the heat sink, which thermoelectric module would produce more power: TEC1-12702, TEC1-12706 or TEC1-12710?
Huh, I always thought that those thermoelectric plates were a lot more expensive.
+LazerLord10 not in hong kong
+LazerLord10 made in CHINA is cheap
@@SimonWoodburyForget I'm just gonna put mine on my woodburning stove in the house. Free and a lot of heat.
You trully make this look simple and easy. and it is a THERMOELECRIC GENERATOR! hats off to you. cheers
This is actually quite simple and really fun! I may actually do this project myself.
the best quality DIY video of the WEB!! Man, you're the best
Great project! Nice concept, and definitely seems like a simple way to convert the temperature difference into electricity. But those so called "peltier modules" are pretty inefficient, but as you said in the video, cheap and simple.
Fixing hot plate at 50 degrees and the heat sink, which thermoelectric module would produce more power: TEC1-12702, TEC1-12706 or TEC1-12710?
Thank you for yet another interesting video! Very much appriciated the time and effort you put in them to make it look so professional! Big thumbs up!
The descriptions is flawless
Hi I am abhilash and I am 13 years old and I like to do electronics and make projects. And u have made an awesome project and even I was thinking to make one earlier and I would now definitely make it. Keep up the good work.
GREETINGS FROM INDIA .☺
Wow Matt this is really clever! Nicely made too. Always love the format of your videos, very clear and informative :)
I just defended my PhD thesis about thermoelectric generation and I have a suggestion for you.
Inside most TE modules there is a layer of graphite that needs to be compressed in order for the modules to work properly. If you would clamp the modules together also during use, the power output from the generator would increase signififantly due to lower thermal (and to some extent also electrical) contact resistances inside the modules. The modules I've been working with should have a contact pressure of 1.2MPa. Such a clamping device would cause the whole generator to be a bit heavier but the increased performance would make it worth it. By the way, thanks for all great videos! :) // Olle
what sort of clamp would produce pressure that high?
Did you learn about the required contact pressure from empirical observation? Or from the manufacturer's documentation?
Hello! My senior design course is trying to design a charge for a cell phone from a cooking fire. May I email you with questions?
How did your design go? I saw a thermoelectric generator that fits over a gas powered lantern, using the heat energy to power old vacuum tube radios. Obviously this is from the 1940s (listen to the radio without AC power or a car battery). The idea is applicable today to charge our modern much more energy efficient devices, and can be extended to your cooking fire design requirement. One side hot, the other side cooler and it works with dissimilar metal wire instead of P-type N-type semiconductor junctions. The electricity was generated from hundreds (thousands?) of pairs of twisted together dissimilar metal wires. Twisted wire pairs instead of peltier plates can work at higher temperatures and without megapascals pressure without failing.
How did your design go?
Here I am contimplating creating a thermoelectric gen. and you've gone out abd done a diy project again. Best Monday ever, hello from the San Jose CA.
Fixing hot plate at 50 degrees and the heat sink, which thermoelectric module would produce more power: TEC1-12702, TEC1-12706 or TEC1-12710?
@@marvinmarvini8629i don't know how much power they'll generate, but they'll probably generate fuck all. assuming the heatsink is at an ambient 20°c, that'll leave you with only 30°c of temperature difference. you'll generate maybe 100mW. you want something like a TGPR-10W-4V-40S run at 200+°c of temperature difference
You make great things and your native advertising is classy.
I love the amazing quality of your videos!
Good video! The science behind peltiers is pretty cool/fascinating and the application is fairly easy to apply to just about any heat source. Unfortunately, the tricky part/catch22 is coming up with an ultra-efficient (no cost) way to heat the hot side, while also efficiently cooling/pulling heat away from the cold side. Attaching a bunch of peltiers to a free heat source, such as (ie) a "fire-ring" (while camping in the middle of Winter) would work really well... but very few people are going to want to sit around a campfire in the middle of Winter/single-digit temps to take advantage of the limited electricity being produced. On a side note, if a person had a free/unlimited supply of candles and ice, the device in the video would be great to have around... especially during a power outage.
One use case is in computer cooling, but I don't know if it's efficient enough to be worth the cost.
Thank you for the video, but more importantly thank you for doing the research and providing those links
Your voice is so relaxing and makes this video more enjoyable.
It may be worth insulating your water bath to keep it cool except for the contact pads. Also trapping as much heat as possible on the underside without smothering the flame. Currently, the candles are basically heating up the exposed water bath.
There is quite a bit to do on the efficiency side of this design.
Firstly, all the thernoelectric generators are in series. This might not be that optimum of a plan. The issue is that the central element probably generate more energy than the side once. The aluminium heat spreeder really don´t spreed the heat that far. A solution to that problem could be to wire them 2x5 or 5x2 or 3x3 (and skip one) and for the case of the 5x2 or 3x3 use a step-up regulator in steed of a step down
The second part is efficiency of the candles. Most of the heat is wasted. It´s not turned into electricity, and not even into heat in the pan. One way of making this... sure have to rebuild quite a lot of the design, is to make a funnel. That is collect all the heat of the candles, funnel it up a "chimney" and have the thermal generators. Could have 4x2 and have a upper and lower stack in parallell. Or make a really narrow chimney and have 2 facing each other and have them stack 5 high.
The last problem it self is the peltier elements... they are simply not that efficient. A normal rankine engine is about 4 times more efficent... but of cause.. find a home size rankine engine might not be that simple.
i thought of using a boiler and copper piping to input heat
Just remember to install diodes between the parallel TECs to prevent one branch from back feeding into another if the voltage is not exactly matched, which it won't be. Also the diodes will decrease the efficiency a little
What if you used this technology to make a thermoelectric solar panel.
You only would need to scale things up and use a aluminium manifold as heat sink
@@mequedo this would be useless as it would be expensive, inefficient and unnecessarily complex relative to solar panels, however it would be possible to create an RTG with this technology, hell this is how an RTG works.
A better version of a thermal solar panel would be a heliostat which boils water into steam that drives a generator.
@@s.sradon9782 You used an unfamiliar (to me) acronym, RTG.... Cast some illumination to me.
So awesome! We party on the beaches of Lake Powell (az/utah) and this will prevent people from firing up their gasoline generators to charge their phones keeping the lake quiet at night! Relatively inexpensive to make a few or 5 and a fun conversation piece that will help my friends!
Thank you for this guide, very interesting, simple, and handsome build) Looks really great.
another great video man hope u make more videos frequently :D :D
samitha sheshan Then they wouldn't be as good
This is what my life has been missing. A phone charger that makes hot chocolate!
Love your voice, your ideas, your video quality, I LUH U MAN.
Input 800 watt of heat,output 1.5 watt of elecricity :D:D
I was thinking the same thing. I wonder what the efficiency is for this set up / what the limit would be.
Good use for waste heat tho.
They say one match stick as about 1 btu. 1 watt gets you 3.41 btus
Dont think those 10 candles are producing 3000 btus
Welp, started doing some searching and found the 80 watt per candle thing... shutting up now
@Cary Howe youuuu my friend, you are my God! How did you calculate that? I'm actually pretty good in physics and electricity but I can't find any kind of Formular... Can you help me out? :)
Hi there! Quick question -- what is the reason to wait for the regulator to reach 10V before turning it on? Also, is the reason for using a larger bread tin like that one you've used in your video so that it can generate more voltage? Not being an electrical engineer myself, I can only assume that more bread tin = more time it takes to warm up the water = longer/more consistent charging time? In other words, if you used a smaller tin, would you not be able to generate enough voltage? Thanks for this awesome video!!
I am short of words. But I can say thank you for the video. I am currently reading on that, but video clearly made me understand the concept. ❤🎉
My masters dissertation was on a project that included these Peltier elements, interesting little devices. When you put current in them one side of the plate gets hot and the other cold, when you switch the polarities the hot and cold sides switch places, and the whole process is reversible - meaning when you add heat, current is produced.
Awesome idea!
Awesome!
Cheers!
+DIY Perks do you wan to make a camera jib
Thats what channels like Linus Tech Tips are for.
Mist8k what of you get a cpu heat sink and use the power it generates to Power the heat sinks fan
Fixing hot plate at 50 degrees and the heat sink, which thermoelectric module would produce more power: TEC1-12702, TEC1-12706 or TEC1-12710?
Your videos are very very well made, and you definitely deserve more supporters!
Such a smart idea!
Awesome!
What about putting everything in parallel 3 by 3?
In this way, you'll have a lower voltage (max 3 or 4 volts) and a quite nice current. You can plug the new set up to a DC to DC step up boost converter and maybe obtain a better efficiency. Another nice ting could be putting a temp sensor like a pt100 and create a sort of an arduino overheating protection switch so you can fine tune the assembly in order to maximise the efficiency. A versus between a couple of arrangements could be quite interesting!
Nice job and keep on doing interesting things like these!
Good Idea. make this one and send me the link or reply here, so that I get the schematic and the source codes
Buck circuits are significantly more efficient and cleaner than boost.
Fixing hot plate at 50 degrees and the heat sink, which thermoelectric module would produce more power: TEC1-12702, TEC1-12706 or TEC1-12710?
What do you think the voltage regulator does?
I would love to see this at scale, say, over a fire pit. You know, an apocalypse version lol given we had as large a stockpile of thermoelectric plates as we do TP
Thanks soooo much for this video, I'm using it as my Science Fair project
Man I remember I've asked you to do this months ago and you did it! Many thanks!!!
i read thermonuclear generator :(
I wish it wass
+Nae Dolor
Those terrorists...
you can pretend :(
+Nae Dolor omg lmfao best thing i have heard today! xDD
+Nae Dolor :(
I'm really tempted to buy those thermoelectric things now, but I don't have a use for them.
They will become one of those "I'll probably use them at some point" things lying around my house.
lol same
+LazerLord10 Yup, and then you find out that they draw 2 Amps at 12 Volts in cooling mode, and only produce one milli-amp of current in reverse mode, and they stay in the drawer were you put them when you got them.
vinny142
yeah.
@@LazerLord10 Peltier elements desktop air-conditioner; cupholder for cars that can make a water bottle stay icy cold; cooling system for fully outdoor computer; liquid cooling system clothing; icemaker
Over the years I've bought some.
All.laying around the house. Many projects tried. None of them were usefull.
Its such a clever device i'm sure theirs a lot of devices that can be useful using thermoelectric generators , many thanks for an interesting and informative video. Thank you Mark Hodges
man,you are awesome,i love all of your videos
Next Radioisotope thermoelectric generator please ;)
Yeah! I love cancer and radiation illness!
+Florian Daßler don't we all?!!!
Florian Daßler You'll be fine as long as you don't try to eat or snort the plutonium. Alpha radiation can't penetrate your skin.
The problem will be GETTING the plutonium.
I too enjoy my cells multiplying rapidly with lethal effects
I don't know if there's a video already out there but I'm really curious if liquid nitrogen or dry ice would just destroy them or if it will still work
Cold doesn't harm them, only if the heat is high enough to melt the solder/glue that holds the individual sections of the Peltier modules together.
Thank you for sharing it would be awesome to have more peltier projects
Wow this project can be done in just around 30 bucks I can't belive it!
I'm going to give it a try, thanks DIY Perks!:D
"This Sweepstakes is open only to those who are legal residents of the fifty (50) states of the U.S."... yeah, no chance to win for me..
But the video was good! :)
And from 3 years in the past :(
piece of shit ameritard
7:04 - good look? ;)
Nooo, gut louk
+Arsyad Kamili Ahhhh...
Good stuff. I'm even thinking of using those thermoelectric plates to make a mini-fridge.
Love your vids and your personality man, keep up the good work!
A rather dumb question:
You did show footage using the generator in a campfire, which could be a rather volatile and uncontrolled source of heat....
What prevents cables and electronic parts from melting?
(simply put, i do not know the temperatures which, the components can withstand)
ALSO: I saw a heat sink, can the generator work like providing the power for the heat sink with a little excess?
The circuit board was on the "cold" side of the system, so it wouldn't have to deal with the full heat of the fire.
When you run a current through the device, it makes one side cold, and the other side hot. If you want to keep it running efficiently, you have to get rid of the heat by pulling it away and throwing it somewhere else. That's what the heatsink is for.
+fatherdoctor Most people think that the mere presence of heat is enough to generate power. that's incorrect. you need to have a FLOW of heat THROUGH the Peltier element in order to generate power. Since heat always wants to flow towards cold spots, you have the cold water at the top.
the better way to do this is mount a heatsink with a big surface area and small fan. it will work as long as candles are burning
should've use a TEG to make it even better. instead of TEC
teg is way more expensive than tec, but totally agree!!!
123woefie this is true it even produces more electricity
감사합니다
제가 만들려던것을 이 영상을 보고 확신할수있게 되었습니다
오늘 겨우 완성하였고. 내일 테스트하고. 몇일내로 영상제작까지 완료할껀데 기대됩니다
살짝 테스트해봤는데 효과가 좋았습니다
다시한번 감사드립니다
Fantastic video. So clearly explained too. Thank you.
**recieves a call** hey bro you won 10 tons of raw aluminum plates, tell us where you want us to deliver them
"Let's make a thermometric generator. Step one, buy a thermometric generator on eBay. Step 2... done..."
thermometric ????
@Gomey World - Oh good... let's all start mistyping words and not giving a crap. That would be so awesome... NOT. Feel free to skew truth and self-evident things all you want, just don't go crying when it begins to have a negative impact on society. Don't believe me (look around) look to history and note the moments in time when truth and self-evidence were at all-time lows vs all-time highs.
@@__WJK__ I think someone needs to look up the difference between correlation and causation.
Mistyping a word is not "skewing truth", claiming unspecified bad things without evidence and pointing to unspecified points in history on the other hand...
You are forgiven for your temporary insanity, it will pass when you get older and get more perspective on life ;)
@@beaconofwierd1883 - Ass-ume much...(?)...I'm 50yrs old (lol) So, how is world history not enough evidence for you(?) The main point I was trying to convey in my reply is, why do so many people get so defensive (or lackadaisical) when someone tries to inquire/question or correct someone else's word choice or spelling error(?) Calling attention to a mistake is a good thing... (ie) Would we not want an observant friend or guest (who walked into our home) to "not" tell us that the un-lit burner on our stove was still on...(?)...I should certainly hope we would. Another, less extreme example... it's well known that before a book gets published, paid proof-readers actually double-check the book writer's word choices and/or mistakes. I very much doubt writers get offended when the publisher's proofreader calls 'em up to ask if they "actually" meant to use a particular word that looks out of place... (i.e., thermometric(?) or thermoelectric(?) If I were a writer... I certainly wouldn't want a proofreader working for a publisher that didn't have a passion for truth and instead said, "I think we all know what the writer meant" ... go ahead and print the book...lol...
@@__WJK__ You're 50 and still think like a 15 year-old? That's depressing. Context matters, if someone misspeaks in a conversation and everyone understands what the person meant it's just rude to point it out. We probably differ on what a comment on TH-cam qualifies as, but I would definitely put it a lot closer to "casual conversation" than "published book" and I bet many others do too, which might explain why you think people get "offended" when they are being corrected.
Also, I did not say world history isn't evidence, I said unspecific reference to world history isn't. I also mentioned something about correlation and causation which you conveniently forgot, though I doubt there's even a correlation between misspellings and "Truth/self-evidence".
I'm pretty sure that I'm some years late to be in with a chance of winning the four Native Union cables haha
And thanks for the video, it was a pleasure watching it :)
Absolutely loved this video. Very informative. I'm definitely subscribing.
Imagine a camping pot made like this. Hang on. Someone's done this already right?
The concept is fairly easy to apply to just about any heat source... the tricky part is coming up with an efficient way to cool/wick the heat away from the heatsink side of the peltier. (ie) Attaching a bunch of peltiers to a camping pot or "fire-ring" in the middle of Winter would work pretty well... but not many people are going to want to sit around/enjoy a fire in the middle of Winter. ;) ;) ;)
Biolite Camp Stove
1:38 surprisingly inefficient as well
Wow really inovative, what made you think of this, candels, water, regulator and all. My oh my creativity and science, at its best. SOOOOOO COOOOOL
I love native union! I have one of their brown ten foot cords! It's sooooo high quality!
I think I should let everyone know that, according to the terms and conditions of the giveaway, its only available to people who live in the USA
but hes in the UK
how the hell does that work
I love everything about the concept except for mounting electronics over a steaming pot. If not shorting it out, the humidity will corrode the metal.
-Justin
it wont steam, the water wont go over 25°c
yeah I doubt its much of an issue. 10V 1A demineralised water meh...
I thing i would change is to solder them in parallel and usa step up boost converter. Or just plug it in directy in a 1-6.5v to 5v usb converter module
distilled water is non conductive, anyway, coat the electronics with plastidip or similar...
If you guys wanna put you your money where you mouth is go ahead and put your phone over a pot of boiling water... Attaching the voltage regulator to the stand would have been a better idea in my opinion -R
This has to be the simplest TEG project I've seen. Good job....
this is brilliant. i live in canada... and a group us us go out to a cabin with no electricity for the weekend from time to time. this would be perfect to keep small devices charged and ready for the trip home. just put this device on the wood stove and chuck in some snow. i can imagine charging laptops on it already
hum... i dont trust anyone who has an iphone...
Hi Murray try one of these Wood Stove TEGs at your cabin. www.tegmart.com/thermoelectric-generator-products/devil-watt-teg-power-15-watt-wood-burning-stove-thermoelectric-generator/
brilliant as always...kudos to you man
use a bonfire. Those candles cost more than a new battery.
I bought 100 candles for £1, so... nope. :)
+DIY Perks burn... 😏
+subin pariyar
wrecked ;d;
+Teemu M. reckted.
+DIY Perks Works in UK only i suppose :)
Molten aluminum on one side and liquid nitrogen on the other? hmmm
Mains voltage
+SuperSilver301
Yeah about 120V but DC not AC.
But 120VDC could work for phone wall chargers, DC will just pass bridge rectifier.
What with him?
+Marco Bertoni the mains voltage goes through bridge rectifier to convert ac to dc, then the dc is lowered to 5v by step-down transformer :P
Bananovskyy Wait, a transformer only works with AC!
120VAC -> Step-down: 12VAC -> Full Bridge Rectifier™ -> 5V regulator
Voilà! 5V Direct current.
Great video. I own a thermoelectric pot, now I think I'll build one.
I'm going to use this when I build my cabin in the Yukon. A little furnace with some water boiling and my little freezer. ;)
Great video and an even better description!!!
Very well explained and narrated. You could get a job as a narrator if you don't have one already. I have got to do this. This is absolutely brilliant. What about making a bigger one to charge a 12v battery? Would that be possible?
That's a cool use of Peltier coolers. :)
This is a great video. I love the creativity!!! :D
May I ask how long does it take to get 100% - if you don't count the time it takes to refil etc.
Thanks!
Looking to build my own outdoor wood furnace to heat our home and barn. while I'm at it I might as well build a TEG on the fire box. Thanks for the idea.
Really love your channel cause you have those global links which i can buy from every where around the world
those thermoelectric plates are really cool. you should build a self-powered cooler using some solar panels and those plates. something that you could just leave out in the sun and it would keep your food way colder than a standard cooler
hey remember me? i commented on one of you videos when you had alot less subs saying you looked like a Game of thrones character! Its good too see how much your channel has grown!
you sir are a legend .. one day I will build one of your gadgets ..
Great invention as always Matt!
you are genuinely awesome.
That's really cool! Very interesting component. Maybe you could make some DIY chillers with it too?
for some reason I love your voice!
That is brilliant Matt, nice one.
This guy is a genius no doubt
Nice project! Pro quality video too. I enjoyed it. You've got a good channel.